Off To London For ‘A Celebration of Science & Reason’

The Conservative Party conference rolls into my home city of Manchester this weekend. The Tory government (as usual) is failing to energise the younger voter in a way that Corbyn’s populist approach is not. The news is saturated with the doom and gloom of Brexit negotiations and it’s expected that a sizeable number of protesters will be making their presence known in Manchester today.

‘Hang The Tories’ effigies have already been reported in the city. The police presence is high, including road blocks and rooftop snipers.

This seemed like the perfect excuse to be anywhere else.

Luckily, this evening I will be attending ‘A Celebration of Science & Reason’, which is a conversation between Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Matt Dillahunty. I’m currently on the train as I type this.

Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris – two of the world’s most respected scientists and authors – share the stage with one of the world’s foremost debaters and skeptics Matt Dillahunty; discussing science and reason. Since finding his way out of religion, Dillahunty gained worldwide fame by hosting the Austin, Texas all-access call-in show The Atheist Experience. He now travels the world debating and lecturing on subjects primarily relating to belief in god and skepticism.

This event will feature a discussion about Science & Reason. How do we become more scientifically literate? How can we better educate society to value skepticism over faith? These are some of the themes that will be addressed

I shall report back on the event at first opportunity, so make sure you follow me on Twitter (@Gspellchecker) or enter your email address on this website to subscribe to my blog.

In the meantime however, given I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with all the aforementioned gentleman at some point or other, I thought I’d bring these conversations to your attention again:

In fact, humanity is in big trouble because these honest voices of reason aren’t being heard by the ignoramuses deciding policies for humanity around the world and self-proclaimed progressives are spending energy maligning the likes of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins instead of focusing on the real, pressing issues of the day like the spread of fake schools teaching kids religious dogma and fear of imaginary sky monsters instead of how to think.

Plenty of You Tube vids from Sam etc out there that you don’t have to pay for, which would say the same things.
My cynicism is growing on all this stuff. I’ve known my stance for years, and don”t really need to hear it said over and over again, especially while paying big money for it. I wonder why Sam’s and Maajid’s film has not surfaced yet. Is it because of a lack of interest and a realisation that we have a money-making thing going on here? Dawkins wrote a good book in 2004 and I was happy to see it, but he is a terrible speaker – very one dimensional, but ironically, a new messiah – and a money generator.
I shall remain suspicious and stick with the more straight-speaking and new book-writing Douglas Murray, who at least moves the whole thing forward, while others are shying away now.